BSG Fic : What's my Line? (2/3)
Title : What's my Line?
Author : Helen C.
Rating : PG-13
Summary : He's not a savior. The Fleet doesn't need another savior anyway; it needs a miracle and he's just one man-not even a soldier, not even a pilot anymore.
Spoilers : Everything aired so far is fair game.
Disclaimer : The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Ronald D. Moore and Universal Television Studios to name but a few. No money is being made. No copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
AN. This one is… weird. The first part is heavily angsty, the second is relatively light-hearted and full of snarky!Lee, and the third falls somewhere in the middle. So, obviously, tone-consistency issues. That's just the way it popped into my mind. If it can help, consider this as three only-vaguely-related ficlets. I do.
AN2. Heartfelt thanks to joey51 for her help with this. As usual, I tinkered; all remaining mistakes are mine.
Part Two
When Lee wakes up with a blinding headache, his thoughts worryingly muddled and slow, his arms tied to the back of a chair, instead of being afraid or pissed off or anything he might have expected, all he gets is a sense of… Well, he's not sure there's a word for it, actually. If there is, he's not in any shape to come up with it. All he knows is that he's getting tired of these bad men wannabies and that he never used to get into so much trouble before the war-not even when Starbuck was around, playing the trouble magnet. And boy, was she an effective magnet.
"Ah, you're conscious," someone drones out near his ear. "Good. I was afraid they'd hit you too hard."
Lee sighs and raises his head. He might as well find out who has him this time and why his head hurts so much. After all, it's not like he has anything better to do-no urgent meetings, no reports to write, no one waiting for him at home. He laughs at the thought, then wonders if they drugged him, because really, that wasn't even remotely funny.
The unwelcome face of Baltar, still unshaven and with long hair-a look that makes him look even more like a nutcase than talking to walls did-appears in his line of sight. The man is frowning and his expression strikes Lee as deeply ridiculous and funny. He keeps laughing, his attempts at stopping himself only making the urge stronger.
"I told you not to give him any drugs," Baltar is yelling at someone. Then, his eyes take on the distant quality they sometimes do and he yells, "No, no, no. If you think I'm going to listen to you…"
Lee doesn't hear the rest of the sentence. He needs to study the situation, and figure out what Baltar wants, and try to find a way to escape, and kick someone's ass, and take a shower (not necessarily in that order) all of which will require him to stop howling with laughter.
He focuses on the pain-pain in his head, at the back of his skull, pain in his arms from being restrained in such a position, numbness in his hands where the blood flow is being restricted, and he's pretty sure someone kicked him in the gut because now that he's paying attention, his stomach doesn't feel too happy with its current status.
He wonders what algae looks like, coming back up, but thinking about food-especially that kind of food-makes the nausea even worse.
Baltar is studying him, arms crossed over his chest, a finger resting on his chin-the picture of puzzlement.
Lee briefly entertains the idea of telling him to stop taking on mad scientist poses if he wants them to be able to have a discussion this century, then decides against it. Baltar may be a buffoon, but he's a buffoon who managed to abduct Lee while he was on Colonial One, if he can trust the moment when his memory stopped recording what was going on and took a leave of absence, and that's theoretically impossible.
He'd do well not to underestimate the doctor just because he looks like a guru-Lee takes a look around, noting the seven women also present-surrounded by part of his harem. Especially when some of the women belonging to said harem carry weapons. He doesn't think they're in Baltar's headquarters, though. The room is unfurnished except for a chair and a table; the scene is lit by candles, which is just wrong, and the practical side of Lee points out that it makes for very inefficient oxygen consumption.
"Interesting," Baltar finally comments. "Did they train you to resist drugs at War College?"
Yes, Lee wants to say. They gave me all kinds of substances until I could think clearly even when drugged to the eyeballs. The instructors were just that willing to take the risk of exposing pilots to drugs that might have negative effects on their reflexes, their ability to think or their psychological balance. Dumbass.
It seems he has some control over his mouth, though, because what he says is, "No."
"Hm." Baltar looks briefly disturbed, distracted, as if he's listening to someone Lee can't hear. Weird. He had stopped doing that during the trial, so far as Lee can remember. "Well, no matter."
There's a pause that stretches long enough that Lee starts to get bored. There was a time when he would have considered being held prisoner highly unnerving and terrifying. Apparently, Baltar just isn't that good at instilling fear into the heart of his captives. Just boredom and a strong need to shower. And, also, throw up.
Yup, still nauseous. Lee takes a few quiet, deep breaths, relieved when his stomach stops screaming for his attention. A temporary reprieve, Lee suspects, but it allows him to ask, "So, Doctor, what am I doing here?"
"You don't sound worried," Baltar says, sounding put out.
Lee stomps down on all the insulting replies he wants to make to that and says, "I'm guessing that if you wanted to kill me, I'd be dead already."
The room is relatively dark but even in the light of the candles-how did the mystics know to bring candles to the end of the world?-Baltar's look of dismay is clear. "Of course, I don't want you dead. You helped me!"
Lee decides against nodding (his head hurts and it might revive the nausea). "Well, then…" he trails off, hoping it will be encouragement enough for Baltar to explain himself.
It is.
Baltar starts talking and goes on for a long time. Lee stops listening once the man starts repeating himself-instead passing time studying the faces of his followers.
Rumors about Baltar's new lifestyle have floated into the President's office in the last months. Lee has learned to deal with Roslin's acerbic remarks and the reproachful looks she keeps throwing at him, looks that remind him that the reason why Baltar is still a thorn in their side is because Lee chose to speak up against her.
He's just relieved that his father hasn't joined in the blame game. It seems that as far as he's concerned, the whole thing is done and never to be discussed again. Lee has been hurt and disappointed by this avoidance tactic before but in this case, he's grateful for it.
He knows just what he did, and while he lives with it better than he lives with some of the other things he did since the beginning of the war, it doesn't mean that it's easy.
He briefly listens to Baltar, tunes him out again when he sees that the man hasn't changed tracks yet-he's the savior of the human race but no one will hear him out so he wants Lee to help him make his voice heard, since people listen to him.
The faces of the women who help Baltar (and Lee tries very hard not to think about how far that help stretches) are rapt with attention, their eyes following every move he makes, drinking in his words. Lee wishes he could believe that they've been slipped something, that they're not in their right minds, but he knows better.
There have always been people to admire criminals. Hell, Zarek has followers too, people who would happily give their lives for him.
Just like his father's men would sacrifice themselves so that their beloved Commander could live, and Lee refuses to follow that comparison any further. Whatever his father's flaws, he's not playing in the same category as Zarek and Baltar (two total scumbags who got to relatively high positions of power thanks to the war, and there's something profound about what the thirst for power and the struggle for survival and fear can do to a race hidden in that, but now isn't the time to get philosophical).
He got abducted and drugged by a bunch of idiots and-
"Are you listening?" Baltar snaps his fingers in front of his eyes and Lee blinks up at him. He hadn't noticed that the man had stopped talking.
"What?"
"Are you listening to me?"
"No," Lee replies. At Baltar's look of outrage (and either Lee's hallucinating or there are angry whispers amongst his followers), he adds, "I did get the gist of it. You know how to save us all, but because you're, well, you, people won't listen and you want me to help."
Baltar looks pacified with his answer. "It is, of course, more complicated than that."
It's really not, doctor, he thinks, but then his eyes catch movement in the hallway outside the room through the small window on the hatch.
"So?" Baltar asks impatiently.
"So what?" Lee asks, intent on not looking openly at the hatch. Either the idiots don't believe in standing guard or their guards have just been neutralized.
Baltar uses the tone he'd probably have used to explain something to a dim ten-year-old. "So, will you help me?"
Lee could tell him that yes, sure, he'll help, why the frak not, it's not like he has better things to do with his life, but he doesn't think the doctor is stupid enough to believe that one. "We're not friends," he points out instead. "You're still a coward and an asshole and frankly, you're raving like a lunatic and that's not exactly confidence-inspiring as far as saving us all goes."
Baltar doesn’t look happy with his answer. "But you helped me once," he says. "You made them see-"
Lee cuts him off. He's so damn tired of people misinterpreting what he did as a sign that he thought Baltar was a good guy. "That they shouldn't kill you? Doesn't mean you don't deserve to die, doctor." He spits out the last word like an insult.
Baltar jerks back as if Lee had hit him.
All the tension is making Lee's nausea come back full force. Great.
"But… but… but…" Baltar stammers as he familiarizes himself with an idea that should have been obvious from the way Lee and Romo washed their hands free of him ten minutes after the end of the trial. Eventually, he gathers himself enough to offer, "I could pay you."
Lee's voice is strained when he asks, "With what? In case you didn't notice, money isn't so useful anymore."
"It is in the black market," Baltar replies.
He's right, of course, but Lee doesn't deal with the black market. "I'm not interested in money." But if you can buy us a time traveling machine so we can go back to the day when we built our first Cylon and warn our ancestors not to do it, then, I might consider helping you. That's just about the one thing Lee's interested in at this point; well, that, and a working relationship with his father, but through avoidance and drinking whenever they spend time together, they've reached a point where they can be in the same room without pissing each other off, so there's progress on that front at least.
"There has to be a way."
Not many people ever said no to you, did they, Baltar?
He thinks he hears a sound outside, and the bad news is that one of the women also does and gets to her feet.
Damn it. He has to keep them all focused on him until the Marines can storm the place and he has no idea how to do that. "Well…" he says softly, then tries for the thing that's more likely to offend them all-it's far from an elegant strategy, but it's all he can come up with. "If I could have my way with that one," he adds with a smile he hopes is more suggestive than embarrassed or disgusted. He jerks his head in the direction of the woman who's standing; she's old enough to be his mother and he hopes to hell that he's not blushing right now.
She stares at him, mouth slightly agape.
All the other women stare at him; he can feel their eyes burning holes in him and he refrains from squirming.
Baltar stares at him, his eyes comically wide. "I'd never have thought," he says, sounding offended.
Lee decides to hammer it home. It's not like things can get much worse. "What? You want to keep her all to yourself?"
The woman looks furious but it's Baltar who slaps him, hard enough that his head is thrown back to the side and his eyes water. "You're trying to anger us," Baltar says calmly, rubbing his hand as Lee reminds himself that shaking his head clear would be a bad move. It's all he can do not to get sick here and now. "Buying time. Well, it won't work."
The pounding in Lee's head resumes with a vengeance but at least, everyone is looking at him now, and not at the hatch.
Baltar goes on. "I have a destiny." If Lee was free to move as he wants, he'd start banging his head against the nearest bulkhead, because Baltar just had to use that word, didn't he? "And so do you."
Lee would be willing to overlook a lot of things-being knocked unconscious, being drugged, getting his ear talked off by a lunatic-but he's sick to hell of people using that word. By now, the assault team he dearly hopes isn't a figment of his imagination must be ready.
The nausea is getting worse by the second and he doesn't fight it back this time.
"So, what's your answer?" Baltar asks, leaning down so they're face to face.
Lee won't get such a wonderful opening again.
He throws up on Baltar.
A few seconds later, there's an explosion. Something clatters on the ground close to Lee, and then there's smoke everywhere, and people screaming and yelling orders.
He feels his bounds being cut off as he starts coughing, tears of strain running down his face.
Baltar's horrified face follows him as he sinks into unconsciousness, just as two pairs of arms grab him and drag him out.
If Lee could draw in a breath, he'd be laughing to tears.
*
His father is peering down at him when he opens his eyes, seeming to loom impossibly high above, almost floating on clouds, and Lee wants to laugh for a while.
He concludes that someone must have given him some of the good stuff at some point.
He feels stoned.
A different kind of stoned than earlier in the day-or was it yesterday?-but stoned nonetheless.
Nonetheless is a funny word. So is stoned.
"Lee," his father says. "How do you feel?"
"Stoned," he replies, a giggle in his voice. He glimpses his father's smile before his eyes drift shut again.
"Aside from that?" the man asks him, and he sounds amused, damn him. Or not. After all, it is pretty funny.
"Depends." He wants to scratch his nose, but moving his arms seems more trouble than it's worth, so he lies still.
"On what?" his father replies after what feels like hours. Each syllable seems to stretch for several minutes and it takes Lee a little while to decipher the meaning of the words.
Yup. He's definitely been given the good stuff.
"Lee?"
He asks, "Did I puke on Baltar?"
The sound that follows is so unusual that Lee forces his eyes open to check that his mind isn't playing tricks on him. Sure enough, his father's laughing. Lee hopes he'll remember that when he's better; it's not something that happens often, especially now.
When his father regains his composure, Lee closes his eyes again. The light doesn't hurt as much as the other times he woke up, but it still bothers him. He kind of misses the candles. He wonders what happened to them. Where they confiscated? Spaced for being a fire hazard? Given back to the rest of Baltar's cult?
"Yes," his father says, his voice still sounding amused. "And the Marines are very grateful that you haven't forgotten how to aim and fire."
Lee snorts, and the sound is funny enough that he chuckles in reaction. "Always happy to make the Marines happy." He hopes his voice isn't too slurred for the words to get through. Then, a thought occurs to him. "No one was hurt, right?" He tries to open his eyes but before he has the time to figure out how to do that, his father replies, "Aside from you, no."
His voice is sober this time, and a hand comes to rest on Lee's shoulder for a few seconds.
There's a sound-metal grating against metal-and Lee mutters, "What are you doing?" when his brain can't supply him with an explanation for it.
"Sitting down."
Oh. Right. He should have known that.
He's very, very stoned. Truly. Deeply. Utterly. Hopelessly. Absolutely. Stoned.
"Cottle says you'll be fine," his father tells him.
"I feel stoned," Lee says. Really stoned. More stoned than when Baltar had me. "It's weird."
"He gave you something in the evening, when he felt safe that the head injury wasn't too severe."
"Neat." Lee manages to get one eye to open long enough to spy bright yellow spots dancing on the white curtain shielding his bed from the rest of sickbay. "I feel really, really stoned."
"Enjoy it while it lasts." By the time Lee looks in his direction again, his father's staring at his clasped hands resting near Lee's arm.
"Yeah." He has the strange feeling he's starting to float, and he thinks he says something along the lines of it being almost like flying again before the drugs drag him under.
*
By the time Romo swings by to visit him, Lee feels well enough to be embarrassed that he got taken prisoner by a bunch of civilians led by the village's… well, it's not like Baltar is an idiot, even though he is. It's not even that he's a monster, even though he is. It's just that it's Baltar, and frak but Starbuck is never going to let him live this one down. He understands; if he was in her shoes, he'd do the same thing. After all, what are friends for?
"What are you doing here?" he asks once Romo has taken a seat.
"Well, our client-"
"-former client," Lee throws in, shrugging when Romo shoots him one of his patented looks-a look that tells him he knows more than Lee does and he sees straight to him.
"-former client," Romo acknowledges, "asked to see me. I assume it's about his recent trouble, but I haven't seen him yet, so I can only conjecture."
Lee isn't sure how he feels about that. He knows Baltar will be tried for what he did, but really, the worst that can happen to him is to be sentenced to a few months in jail. No one was hurt, no one was killed, and a stay in a cell is just likely to make him even more popular amongst the nutcases than he already is.
His father's voice from the curtain surprises him. "And you're seeing him against my better judgment."
Lee turns to Romo in time to see him nod politely, then to his father to see his equally polite nod, and the tension rises in the room. "Could you please get on the same side of the bed?" he asks, and they both stare at him askance "Still got a headache, and this isn't helping."
His father complies wordlessly, then launches into his attack. Lee allows him and Romo to talk uninterrupted for a while-a debate involving mostly the rights of any prisoner to a fair trial and the fact that Romo likes his job. Lee wonders if his father finds it as fascinating as he does to talk with someone who knew Joseph Adama, the lawyer-not just the father or the grandfather, but the man.
When his father and Romo are done defending their respective views, he asks Romo, "Are you going to defend him?"
Romo smiles-the kind of smile that makes Lee want to hit him very hard. "I have a rule, Mister Adama. I do not defend clients who are stupid enough to get caught twice in less than a year."
"What happened to everyone's right to a fair trial?" his father asks, his tone so oddly reminiscent of Starbuck that Lee has to hide a laugh behind a cough.
"There are other lawyers out there, Admiral. My time will be better employed helping… other clients of mine who need it more." He turns to Lee without waiting for a reply. "He asked, if you can believe it, that you help me defend him."
Lee laughs incredulously. "Right. Aside from the fact that I'll be cited as a witness-"
"Which didn't stop us once," Romo throws in with a hint of triumph in his voice.
Lee carefully avoids looking at his father. His head is starting to hurt again and he wants to finish this conversation before he has to ask them to leave. "I'm not a lawyer."
"You did defend Kara," his father points out, his voice neutral.
Lee's relieved that at least that's something his father doesn't hold against him. He's not sure he helped much anyway. He'd like to think that his being here, arguing for them to treat her like a human being until they got proof that she wasn't, at least ensured that she got a fighting chance instead of being summarily executed. Mostly, though, he has the feeling that they-his father, the President and Tigh-did just what they wanted. "She's a friend. Baltar's… not." He chuckles at the euphemism, then absently rubs his eyes as the headache gets a little worse.
He misses being stoned.
His father spots the gesture. "You want me to go ask Cottle for-"
Lee cuts him off. "No. I just need to sleep." Both his father and Romo get to their feet-his father surprisingly quickly, Romo more slowly.
"I'll go tell our former client that he'll need to find someone else," he says. "I can even recommend one of my colleagues."
"What did he ever do to you?" Lee blurts out before he can stop himself, and Romo looks like a teacher when one of his students has finally given the correct answer after days of struggling through a problem.
"She hasn't done anything to me. I just think she would welcome the challenge."
Romo leaves on a courteous nod to Lee but his father lingers for a while, absently smoothing a wrinkle in Lee's covers before finally stepping out, and allowing Lee to get to sleep.
Part Three
Author : Helen C.
Rating : PG-13
Summary : He's not a savior. The Fleet doesn't need another savior anyway; it needs a miracle and he's just one man-not even a soldier, not even a pilot anymore.
Spoilers : Everything aired so far is fair game.
Disclaimer : The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Ronald D. Moore and Universal Television Studios to name but a few. No money is being made. No copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
AN. This one is… weird. The first part is heavily angsty, the second is relatively light-hearted and full of snarky!Lee, and the third falls somewhere in the middle. So, obviously, tone-consistency issues. That's just the way it popped into my mind. If it can help, consider this as three only-vaguely-related ficlets. I do.
AN2. Heartfelt thanks to joey51 for her help with this. As usual, I tinkered; all remaining mistakes are mine.
Part Two
When Lee wakes up with a blinding headache, his thoughts worryingly muddled and slow, his arms tied to the back of a chair, instead of being afraid or pissed off or anything he might have expected, all he gets is a sense of… Well, he's not sure there's a word for it, actually. If there is, he's not in any shape to come up with it. All he knows is that he's getting tired of these bad men wannabies and that he never used to get into so much trouble before the war-not even when Starbuck was around, playing the trouble magnet. And boy, was she an effective magnet.
"Ah, you're conscious," someone drones out near his ear. "Good. I was afraid they'd hit you too hard."
Lee sighs and raises his head. He might as well find out who has him this time and why his head hurts so much. After all, it's not like he has anything better to do-no urgent meetings, no reports to write, no one waiting for him at home. He laughs at the thought, then wonders if they drugged him, because really, that wasn't even remotely funny.
The unwelcome face of Baltar, still unshaven and with long hair-a look that makes him look even more like a nutcase than talking to walls did-appears in his line of sight. The man is frowning and his expression strikes Lee as deeply ridiculous and funny. He keeps laughing, his attempts at stopping himself only making the urge stronger.
"I told you not to give him any drugs," Baltar is yelling at someone. Then, his eyes take on the distant quality they sometimes do and he yells, "No, no, no. If you think I'm going to listen to you…"
Lee doesn't hear the rest of the sentence. He needs to study the situation, and figure out what Baltar wants, and try to find a way to escape, and kick someone's ass, and take a shower (not necessarily in that order) all of which will require him to stop howling with laughter.
He focuses on the pain-pain in his head, at the back of his skull, pain in his arms from being restrained in such a position, numbness in his hands where the blood flow is being restricted, and he's pretty sure someone kicked him in the gut because now that he's paying attention, his stomach doesn't feel too happy with its current status.
He wonders what algae looks like, coming back up, but thinking about food-especially that kind of food-makes the nausea even worse.
Baltar is studying him, arms crossed over his chest, a finger resting on his chin-the picture of puzzlement.
Lee briefly entertains the idea of telling him to stop taking on mad scientist poses if he wants them to be able to have a discussion this century, then decides against it. Baltar may be a buffoon, but he's a buffoon who managed to abduct Lee while he was on Colonial One, if he can trust the moment when his memory stopped recording what was going on and took a leave of absence, and that's theoretically impossible.
He'd do well not to underestimate the doctor just because he looks like a guru-Lee takes a look around, noting the seven women also present-surrounded by part of his harem. Especially when some of the women belonging to said harem carry weapons. He doesn't think they're in Baltar's headquarters, though. The room is unfurnished except for a chair and a table; the scene is lit by candles, which is just wrong, and the practical side of Lee points out that it makes for very inefficient oxygen consumption.
"Interesting," Baltar finally comments. "Did they train you to resist drugs at War College?"
Yes, Lee wants to say. They gave me all kinds of substances until I could think clearly even when drugged to the eyeballs. The instructors were just that willing to take the risk of exposing pilots to drugs that might have negative effects on their reflexes, their ability to think or their psychological balance. Dumbass.
It seems he has some control over his mouth, though, because what he says is, "No."
"Hm." Baltar looks briefly disturbed, distracted, as if he's listening to someone Lee can't hear. Weird. He had stopped doing that during the trial, so far as Lee can remember. "Well, no matter."
There's a pause that stretches long enough that Lee starts to get bored. There was a time when he would have considered being held prisoner highly unnerving and terrifying. Apparently, Baltar just isn't that good at instilling fear into the heart of his captives. Just boredom and a strong need to shower. And, also, throw up.
Yup, still nauseous. Lee takes a few quiet, deep breaths, relieved when his stomach stops screaming for his attention. A temporary reprieve, Lee suspects, but it allows him to ask, "So, Doctor, what am I doing here?"
"You don't sound worried," Baltar says, sounding put out.
Lee stomps down on all the insulting replies he wants to make to that and says, "I'm guessing that if you wanted to kill me, I'd be dead already."
The room is relatively dark but even in the light of the candles-how did the mystics know to bring candles to the end of the world?-Baltar's look of dismay is clear. "Of course, I don't want you dead. You helped me!"
Lee decides against nodding (his head hurts and it might revive the nausea). "Well, then…" he trails off, hoping it will be encouragement enough for Baltar to explain himself.
It is.
Baltar starts talking and goes on for a long time. Lee stops listening once the man starts repeating himself-instead passing time studying the faces of his followers.
Rumors about Baltar's new lifestyle have floated into the President's office in the last months. Lee has learned to deal with Roslin's acerbic remarks and the reproachful looks she keeps throwing at him, looks that remind him that the reason why Baltar is still a thorn in their side is because Lee chose to speak up against her.
He's just relieved that his father hasn't joined in the blame game. It seems that as far as he's concerned, the whole thing is done and never to be discussed again. Lee has been hurt and disappointed by this avoidance tactic before but in this case, he's grateful for it.
He knows just what he did, and while he lives with it better than he lives with some of the other things he did since the beginning of the war, it doesn't mean that it's easy.
He briefly listens to Baltar, tunes him out again when he sees that the man hasn't changed tracks yet-he's the savior of the human race but no one will hear him out so he wants Lee to help him make his voice heard, since people listen to him.
The faces of the women who help Baltar (and Lee tries very hard not to think about how far that help stretches) are rapt with attention, their eyes following every move he makes, drinking in his words. Lee wishes he could believe that they've been slipped something, that they're not in their right minds, but he knows better.
There have always been people to admire criminals. Hell, Zarek has followers too, people who would happily give their lives for him.
Just like his father's men would sacrifice themselves so that their beloved Commander could live, and Lee refuses to follow that comparison any further. Whatever his father's flaws, he's not playing in the same category as Zarek and Baltar (two total scumbags who got to relatively high positions of power thanks to the war, and there's something profound about what the thirst for power and the struggle for survival and fear can do to a race hidden in that, but now isn't the time to get philosophical).
He got abducted and drugged by a bunch of idiots and-
"Are you listening?" Baltar snaps his fingers in front of his eyes and Lee blinks up at him. He hadn't noticed that the man had stopped talking.
"What?"
"Are you listening to me?"
"No," Lee replies. At Baltar's look of outrage (and either Lee's hallucinating or there are angry whispers amongst his followers), he adds, "I did get the gist of it. You know how to save us all, but because you're, well, you, people won't listen and you want me to help."
Baltar looks pacified with his answer. "It is, of course, more complicated than that."
It's really not, doctor, he thinks, but then his eyes catch movement in the hallway outside the room through the small window on the hatch.
"So?" Baltar asks impatiently.
"So what?" Lee asks, intent on not looking openly at the hatch. Either the idiots don't believe in standing guard or their guards have just been neutralized.
Baltar uses the tone he'd probably have used to explain something to a dim ten-year-old. "So, will you help me?"
Lee could tell him that yes, sure, he'll help, why the frak not, it's not like he has better things to do with his life, but he doesn't think the doctor is stupid enough to believe that one. "We're not friends," he points out instead. "You're still a coward and an asshole and frankly, you're raving like a lunatic and that's not exactly confidence-inspiring as far as saving us all goes."
Baltar doesn’t look happy with his answer. "But you helped me once," he says. "You made them see-"
Lee cuts him off. He's so damn tired of people misinterpreting what he did as a sign that he thought Baltar was a good guy. "That they shouldn't kill you? Doesn't mean you don't deserve to die, doctor." He spits out the last word like an insult.
Baltar jerks back as if Lee had hit him.
All the tension is making Lee's nausea come back full force. Great.
"But… but… but…" Baltar stammers as he familiarizes himself with an idea that should have been obvious from the way Lee and Romo washed their hands free of him ten minutes after the end of the trial. Eventually, he gathers himself enough to offer, "I could pay you."
Lee's voice is strained when he asks, "With what? In case you didn't notice, money isn't so useful anymore."
"It is in the black market," Baltar replies.
He's right, of course, but Lee doesn't deal with the black market. "I'm not interested in money." But if you can buy us a time traveling machine so we can go back to the day when we built our first Cylon and warn our ancestors not to do it, then, I might consider helping you. That's just about the one thing Lee's interested in at this point; well, that, and a working relationship with his father, but through avoidance and drinking whenever they spend time together, they've reached a point where they can be in the same room without pissing each other off, so there's progress on that front at least.
"There has to be a way."
Not many people ever said no to you, did they, Baltar?
He thinks he hears a sound outside, and the bad news is that one of the women also does and gets to her feet.
Damn it. He has to keep them all focused on him until the Marines can storm the place and he has no idea how to do that. "Well…" he says softly, then tries for the thing that's more likely to offend them all-it's far from an elegant strategy, but it's all he can come up with. "If I could have my way with that one," he adds with a smile he hopes is more suggestive than embarrassed or disgusted. He jerks his head in the direction of the woman who's standing; she's old enough to be his mother and he hopes to hell that he's not blushing right now.
She stares at him, mouth slightly agape.
All the other women stare at him; he can feel their eyes burning holes in him and he refrains from squirming.
Baltar stares at him, his eyes comically wide. "I'd never have thought," he says, sounding offended.
Lee decides to hammer it home. It's not like things can get much worse. "What? You want to keep her all to yourself?"
The woman looks furious but it's Baltar who slaps him, hard enough that his head is thrown back to the side and his eyes water. "You're trying to anger us," Baltar says calmly, rubbing his hand as Lee reminds himself that shaking his head clear would be a bad move. It's all he can do not to get sick here and now. "Buying time. Well, it won't work."
The pounding in Lee's head resumes with a vengeance but at least, everyone is looking at him now, and not at the hatch.
Baltar goes on. "I have a destiny." If Lee was free to move as he wants, he'd start banging his head against the nearest bulkhead, because Baltar just had to use that word, didn't he? "And so do you."
Lee would be willing to overlook a lot of things-being knocked unconscious, being drugged, getting his ear talked off by a lunatic-but he's sick to hell of people using that word. By now, the assault team he dearly hopes isn't a figment of his imagination must be ready.
The nausea is getting worse by the second and he doesn't fight it back this time.
"So, what's your answer?" Baltar asks, leaning down so they're face to face.
Lee won't get such a wonderful opening again.
He throws up on Baltar.
A few seconds later, there's an explosion. Something clatters on the ground close to Lee, and then there's smoke everywhere, and people screaming and yelling orders.
He feels his bounds being cut off as he starts coughing, tears of strain running down his face.
Baltar's horrified face follows him as he sinks into unconsciousness, just as two pairs of arms grab him and drag him out.
If Lee could draw in a breath, he'd be laughing to tears.
*
His father is peering down at him when he opens his eyes, seeming to loom impossibly high above, almost floating on clouds, and Lee wants to laugh for a while.
He concludes that someone must have given him some of the good stuff at some point.
He feels stoned.
A different kind of stoned than earlier in the day-or was it yesterday?-but stoned nonetheless.
Nonetheless is a funny word. So is stoned.
"Lee," his father says. "How do you feel?"
"Stoned," he replies, a giggle in his voice. He glimpses his father's smile before his eyes drift shut again.
"Aside from that?" the man asks him, and he sounds amused, damn him. Or not. After all, it is pretty funny.
"Depends." He wants to scratch his nose, but moving his arms seems more trouble than it's worth, so he lies still.
"On what?" his father replies after what feels like hours. Each syllable seems to stretch for several minutes and it takes Lee a little while to decipher the meaning of the words.
Yup. He's definitely been given the good stuff.
"Lee?"
He asks, "Did I puke on Baltar?"
The sound that follows is so unusual that Lee forces his eyes open to check that his mind isn't playing tricks on him. Sure enough, his father's laughing. Lee hopes he'll remember that when he's better; it's not something that happens often, especially now.
When his father regains his composure, Lee closes his eyes again. The light doesn't hurt as much as the other times he woke up, but it still bothers him. He kind of misses the candles. He wonders what happened to them. Where they confiscated? Spaced for being a fire hazard? Given back to the rest of Baltar's cult?
"Yes," his father says, his voice still sounding amused. "And the Marines are very grateful that you haven't forgotten how to aim and fire."
Lee snorts, and the sound is funny enough that he chuckles in reaction. "Always happy to make the Marines happy." He hopes his voice isn't too slurred for the words to get through. Then, a thought occurs to him. "No one was hurt, right?" He tries to open his eyes but before he has the time to figure out how to do that, his father replies, "Aside from you, no."
His voice is sober this time, and a hand comes to rest on Lee's shoulder for a few seconds.
There's a sound-metal grating against metal-and Lee mutters, "What are you doing?" when his brain can't supply him with an explanation for it.
"Sitting down."
Oh. Right. He should have known that.
He's very, very stoned. Truly. Deeply. Utterly. Hopelessly. Absolutely. Stoned.
"Cottle says you'll be fine," his father tells him.
"I feel stoned," Lee says. Really stoned. More stoned than when Baltar had me. "It's weird."
"He gave you something in the evening, when he felt safe that the head injury wasn't too severe."
"Neat." Lee manages to get one eye to open long enough to spy bright yellow spots dancing on the white curtain shielding his bed from the rest of sickbay. "I feel really, really stoned."
"Enjoy it while it lasts." By the time Lee looks in his direction again, his father's staring at his clasped hands resting near Lee's arm.
"Yeah." He has the strange feeling he's starting to float, and he thinks he says something along the lines of it being almost like flying again before the drugs drag him under.
*
By the time Romo swings by to visit him, Lee feels well enough to be embarrassed that he got taken prisoner by a bunch of civilians led by the village's… well, it's not like Baltar is an idiot, even though he is. It's not even that he's a monster, even though he is. It's just that it's Baltar, and frak but Starbuck is never going to let him live this one down. He understands; if he was in her shoes, he'd do the same thing. After all, what are friends for?
"What are you doing here?" he asks once Romo has taken a seat.
"Well, our client-"
"-former client," Lee throws in, shrugging when Romo shoots him one of his patented looks-a look that tells him he knows more than Lee does and he sees straight to him.
"-former client," Romo acknowledges, "asked to see me. I assume it's about his recent trouble, but I haven't seen him yet, so I can only conjecture."
Lee isn't sure how he feels about that. He knows Baltar will be tried for what he did, but really, the worst that can happen to him is to be sentenced to a few months in jail. No one was hurt, no one was killed, and a stay in a cell is just likely to make him even more popular amongst the nutcases than he already is.
His father's voice from the curtain surprises him. "And you're seeing him against my better judgment."
Lee turns to Romo in time to see him nod politely, then to his father to see his equally polite nod, and the tension rises in the room. "Could you please get on the same side of the bed?" he asks, and they both stare at him askance "Still got a headache, and this isn't helping."
His father complies wordlessly, then launches into his attack. Lee allows him and Romo to talk uninterrupted for a while-a debate involving mostly the rights of any prisoner to a fair trial and the fact that Romo likes his job. Lee wonders if his father finds it as fascinating as he does to talk with someone who knew Joseph Adama, the lawyer-not just the father or the grandfather, but the man.
When his father and Romo are done defending their respective views, he asks Romo, "Are you going to defend him?"
Romo smiles-the kind of smile that makes Lee want to hit him very hard. "I have a rule, Mister Adama. I do not defend clients who are stupid enough to get caught twice in less than a year."
"What happened to everyone's right to a fair trial?" his father asks, his tone so oddly reminiscent of Starbuck that Lee has to hide a laugh behind a cough.
"There are other lawyers out there, Admiral. My time will be better employed helping… other clients of mine who need it more." He turns to Lee without waiting for a reply. "He asked, if you can believe it, that you help me defend him."
Lee laughs incredulously. "Right. Aside from the fact that I'll be cited as a witness-"
"Which didn't stop us once," Romo throws in with a hint of triumph in his voice.
Lee carefully avoids looking at his father. His head is starting to hurt again and he wants to finish this conversation before he has to ask them to leave. "I'm not a lawyer."
"You did defend Kara," his father points out, his voice neutral.
Lee's relieved that at least that's something his father doesn't hold against him. He's not sure he helped much anyway. He'd like to think that his being here, arguing for them to treat her like a human being until they got proof that she wasn't, at least ensured that she got a fighting chance instead of being summarily executed. Mostly, though, he has the feeling that they-his father, the President and Tigh-did just what they wanted. "She's a friend. Baltar's… not." He chuckles at the euphemism, then absently rubs his eyes as the headache gets a little worse.
He misses being stoned.
His father spots the gesture. "You want me to go ask Cottle for-"
Lee cuts him off. "No. I just need to sleep." Both his father and Romo get to their feet-his father surprisingly quickly, Romo more slowly.
"I'll go tell our former client that he'll need to find someone else," he says. "I can even recommend one of my colleagues."
"What did he ever do to you?" Lee blurts out before he can stop himself, and Romo looks like a teacher when one of his students has finally given the correct answer after days of struggling through a problem.
"She hasn't done anything to me. I just think she would welcome the challenge."
Romo leaves on a courteous nod to Lee but his father lingers for a while, absently smoothing a wrinkle in Lee's covers before finally stepping out, and allowing Lee to get to sleep.
Part Three